Empire WatchAnalysis of current world affairs with focus on gloabal struggle for social and economic justice and against racism, war, imperialism and oppression much of it brought on by US Empire and its allies

Ebola Reveals the Bankruptcy of World Capitalism

It’s quite ironic for TV networks to continue to say that the chance of contracting Ebola is next to nil and still spend so much time talking about it, filling the air with useless talk and fear mongering, without discussing why so many in West Africa should waste away, while those who were infected and treated in the US in a timely fashion were all cured (Thomas Duncan was not diagnosed and treated in time to save him).

While most people acknowledge the direct correlation between the spread of such infectious diseases in poor nations, on the one hand, and poverty, absence of adequate care and lack of resources, including clean water, which hundreds of millions of people in poor countries lack, on the other hand, they fail to make the necessary connection to the dominant economic system in the world, responsible for it all. It’s not so much that capitalism and its consequent outgrowth into colonialism and imperialism is not capable of providing care to those who need it the most, but rather that it’s not even willing to, even if it could. It’s not set up or meant to. Profit making and accumulation of wealth and capital by any means necessary has nothing to do with meeting people’s needs or curing their illnesses.

The kind of world capitalism and its advanced form, imperialism, creates is a group of rich nations (or rather the ruling classes of those nations) exploiting and looting the underdeveloped countries, with the gap continuing to increase with time, making the poor poorer and the rich richer, with all its unfortunate and sad consequences, some of which we witness when there is an epidemic or a natural disaster in those countries. In such a system, humanity and human empathy gives way to mindless and narrow minded nationalism and even racism, dividing humanity along racial and national lines in order to facilitate and perpetuate colonialism and imperialism. The income and wealth inequality and the resulting intensification of class struggle within the imperialist nations, which comes with brutal police crackdowns and massive spying programs on the entire population, gets repeated on the larger scale between the rich and poor nations, with the former ready and prepared at moments notice to unleash its immense military might to crush any resistance by the latter, while they exploit and loot and leave them to die when an epidemic strikes. This is the kind of world they’ve created for us! This is their brave new world!